As a card type tool that requires security such as an electronic account settlement card or an identification card in an electronic commerce, a contact IC card having an electric contact has come into practical use. Because the contact IC card is so structured as to be electrically connected directly to the reader/writer through the contact, the operation is normally stable. However, because the card is inserted into or drawn off from the reader/writer with a physical contact, there is the possibility that a trouble such as contact failure occurs. Under the circumstances, in recent years, a contactless IC card on which a contactless IC media that enables the transmission of recorded information without any physical contact is mounted has appeared and has been studied for practical use.
The contactless IC card is normally structured by mounting a contactless IC media made up of a radio transceiver circuit having an antenna (coil) and an IC section having a processor and a memory on a card medium. The contactless IC card may be structured by a so-called memory card having no processor in the IC section.
The connection with the reader/writer in the contactless IC card is conducted through the radio transceiver circuit, and a power supply and clocks required for the operation are generally supplied from the reader/writer side. The transmission of information including a power component and so on from the reader/writer is conducted by using a signal resulting from modulating a radio carrier wave of, for example, 13.56 [MHz] in ASK (amplitude shift key). On the other hand, the transmission of information from the card side is conducted by using a signal resulting from load-modulating sub-carrier waves (847.5/423.7 [kHz]) which combine a plurality of signals of, for example, 13.56 [MHz] together. Because it is predicted that a plurality of contactless IC cards are mixed together in the vicinity of the same reader/writer, a technique which is called “anti-collision” for preventing data collision between the respective cards has been established. At present,a modulating system conducted at the time of returning from the card side to the reader/writer is changed, or a return timing is changed, to thereby enable several cards to be identified. The anti-collision technique can be referred to the disclosures of Japanese Patent Unexamined Application Publication No. Hei 5-217032, Japanese Patent Unexamined Application Publication No. Hei 5-266267.
Also, in recent years, cellular phone radios such as PHSs (Personal Handyphone System) or wireless phones, and mobile computer terminals have been rapidly diffused, and many persons have come to carry the cellular phone radios or the mobile computer terminals. Under the circumstances, an attempt is made to variously add value to the cellular phone radio and so on with the use of the IC card. For example, Japanese Patent Unexamined Application Publication No. Hei 8-87655 discloses an information processing system in which when a holder of an IC card (an owner of the cellular phone radio) inserts the IC card on which information on a bank of account has been recorded into the cellular phone radio to purchase goods or offer paid service, a device for offering the goods or the like acquires the recorded information of the IC card through the cellular phone radio, and automatically conducts electronic account by aid of the acquired recorded information. In this example, the IC card is formed of a contact type IC card, and the cellular phone radio side is equipped with a contact type reader/writer having an electric contact.
As described above, because no electric contact is required for the contactless IC card, the IC module can be downsized, thinned and mass-produced as compared with the contact IC card. Also, even if a plurality of contactless IC cards are mixed together in the vicinity of the same reader/writer, since the reader/writer side can discriminate those IC cards, the same application mode as that of the contact type IC card is enabled. In addition, the reader/writer for reading the information recorded on the contactless IC card can be downsized and lighted in weight more than the contact type IC card.
However, most of the conventional contactless IC cards record the information in card unit. That is, the application of the IC card is determined in each of the cards. For that reason, the user is burdened down with holding a plurality of contactless IC cards according to the purposes of applications and finding out an appropriate IC card when using the IC card.
Also, for example, in the above-mentioned information processing system, if the contact type IC card is replaced by the contactless IC card, the reader/writer can be downsized, and the cellular phone radio per se is also expected to be lighted in weight. However, the conventional reader/writer of this application conducts only information interchange with a memory of a built-in contact type IC card (or the built-in contactless IC card) or an external contactless IC card, and it is not supposed that information is interchanged between the built-in contact type IC card (or the built-in contactless IC card) and the external contactless IC card.
As described above, up to now, it is supposed that the contactless IC media is embedded in a card-shaped medium and used in the card unit. However, the contactless IC media is not naturally limited to the conventional application mode. Also, it can be expected that the IC media is put to practical use not only in a specific field but also in various fields where the information communication is intervened for general purposes.
Under the above circumstances, an object of the present invention is to provide a contactless IC media excellent in general purposes.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an applied system which is capable of adding more values with the use of the contactless IC media.